


Chichester

by Termagant (subduction)



Category: Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-06
Updated: 2008-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-06 00:51:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subduction/pseuds/Termagant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Hornblower has been beached for seven weeks and four days, and Chichester is not the sea, but it is close enough.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chichester

Here is how this story goes: on the first Friday of the month, the Resident Commissioner takes the morning ferry from Sheerness to Haversham and the post-chaise from Haversham to Chichester. He stays until Sunday. Sometimes he will bring an item requested by one of his sisters; sometimes he will bring a surprise. Ribbons, or spices, or some amusing foreign trinket. Once a pound of chocolate. Once a basket of tart, juicy Seville oranges.

One Friday, he brings an old friend.

*

Hornblower has been beached for seven weeks and four days, and Chichester is not the sea, but it is close enough. It is in the village, when he walks through in the morning. Something about the posture of the men, some look in the women's eyes. In the churchyard are many crosses, few of which mark a body returned to the earth intact.

He longs for the sea the way he once longed for fresh water: the way a dying man, he imagines, longs for absolution.

Bush lives in a neat, whitewashed cottage bursting with ruffles and embroidery and sisters. The windows are large, the rooms bright. Everything smells of lavender. It is not, in fact, so very different from the home of Hornblower's own childhood — except for the sisters, of course. There are four of these, one older than Bush and three younger, and Hornblower is introduced to each in turn until he is dizzy with names and colours, most of which he will forget three times before the weekend is over. Somehow he has always expected something different of the women who shared Bush's birth, Bush's village school and childhood games — if one could imagine such a man as Bush ever to have played childhood games — something more sober and phlegmatic, some indefinable quality which is _Bush_ — none of which seems to be particularly in evidence, save for the stentorian tones with which the oldest sister occasionally chides the youngest.

(They call Bush _William_, and he had known, of course, his lieutenant's given name; but to hear him actually called by it still feels stranger than the rest of it put together — the leg, the civilian clothes, the vegetable garden — and to hear him teased, stranger than if Bush himself had walked up and addressed him one morning in fluent and perfectly-accented Spanish.)

The girls put him in the largest bedroom — still cramped by the standards of the world in which he is learning to live, and decorated in a fashion Barbara, he thinks, would call "just _charming_," in that way she has of paying a compliment which conveys no actual esteem whatsoever — with a gable window facing east and a narrow, creaking bed. White-painted iron bed-frame, blue windowpane quilt, white washstand with blue porcelain jug and basin. Beneath the window are two low shelves of some dark, smooth-worn wood, and upon the first stands a candle in a pewter holder, and a posy of yellow wildflowers in a fluted glass vase, and beside this two battered books — the titles on their spines are worn and obscured, but when he opens the first it is instantly recognizable as Norie's, though an edition considerably older than his own, and the second turns out to be a book of sea-tales for boys. In the inside cover of each is a name: _Wm. Bush_, childish black ink-strokes now faded to sepia; and in Norie's there is above this another, so yellowed as to be indiscernible beyond the same capital B. From the window one can almost make out the sea.

*

Bush says grace in an oddly muted — rhythmic, rather than resounding — version of his quarterdeck voice. He reaches around the table silently, first, and Hornblower finds each hand pressed in that of a different sister, soft and cool; and in this circle, he thinks, there is something — some harmony, perhaps, in the voices raised — which he cannot hear, but which makes his throat tighten nonetheless.

Hornblower sleeps without dreaming.

*

The vegetable garden is instantly recognizable as Bush's domain: all austere lines and careful spacing, and not a weed in sight. Ship-shape. Hornblower is perhaps a little surprised to see flowers — blue-violet irises, indolent white Madonna lilies — edging brightly along the pristine stiles of the fence. There is a birdbath, of the same dark native stone which gives the garden paths their paving, and there is, in addition, a small wrought-iron bench in the corner opposite the kitchen door.

It is Saturday afternoon. The women have gone calling in the village, and Hornblower sits reading on the bench. Barbara continues to press what she calls _modern literature_ upon him — this week it is Scott, of whom the best Hornblower can say is that he prefers him to Byron. The book lies in his lap, mostly. The sisters have hung their washing on a line across the garden, and something about the way the white linen catches the wind—

Bush is leaning on a shovel in the far corner of the garden, wearing green trousers — one leg cut short to accommodate the peg — and an old white shirt rolled up to the elbows and no hat at all, and he is looking out across the fence, at something distant or unseen, with what Hornblower always thinks of as his philosophical look; and though they are not fifteen feet apart Hornblower feels, in this moment, more alone than he has ever felt in his life.

*

Two months later Hornblower turns up at Sheerness quite unannounced. He has some impeccable excuse, of course, and of course Bush would never dream of its being an excuse at all; still, Hornblower must create his own entertainment nowadays, and has his speeches all rehearsed, and even acknowledges in himself a trace of disappointment when Bush displays no particular desire to hear them. Instead Bush invites him to stay to a simple but fine dinner, and then to a glass of brandy, and finally he asks the question Hornblower has come so many miles to hear — and he believes, with some satisfaction, that he has managed to keep the note of desperation out of his voice when he says _yes_.

*

Emily is the oldest, and almost a match for Hornblower at whist; the others, alas, share their brother's aptitude for the game. He begs off after two rubbers.

He had a letter from Major — Colonel, rather — Côtard. Some weeks ago now. Delighted to hear the rumours of his demise had been mistaken. Desirous of seeing him, and of course the good Capitaine Bush as well. Most distressed to hear of the latter's regrettable injury. Felicitations on his upcoming marriage. Hoping to pay his respects to the new Mrs. Hornblower when next in town. Remaining always his most humble servant, &amp;c., &amp;c.

Hornblower has not replied. Every time he sits down to his writing-desk in Curzon Street he brings the letter out, smooths it flat on the surface — Bengal teak, one of Barbara's impeccable finds — brings out paper and quill and ink, sand and sealing-wax, and inks the quill and holds it over an empty sheet of paper until some interval has passed and he puts it all away again. Often, a drop has fallen, and the sheet will be spoiled.

He remembers it now. It is evening, and the windows show purple sky, blustery autumn; the sisters have lit oil-lamps and candles in the sitting-room. Bush is reading the _Gazette_ in his chair by the fire, good leg propped on a low stool, and when he puts the paper down Hornblower draws the letter out, hands it across without a word. It is not a long letter, but Bush reads it carefully. In the firelight he can see Bush's lips moving over the occasional foreign phrase, trying to parse the half-remembered sounds of that other country. A memory, unbidden, surges up — Bush, another fire, another cold winter — but Hornblower denies it access. Focuses instead on this moment, on the movements of Bush's face in shadow and light. A faint quirk of the lips at some ironic comment or other; Côtard's wit had not dulled, evidently, in all the years of exile.

"I've thought of going back there," Bush says, very softly, some minutes after he has finished the letter. "There'll be peace one of these days. A proper peace." He is looking at the fire, not at Hornblower, and it occurs to him quite suddenly that his old lieutenant is a man on land now — a man with memories and regrets, a man who wants things; a man who might even want peace some day. Bush, he realizes with some surprise, is growing old.

"I'll write," is all he says. "Ask him to Smallbridge in the spring. You should come too," he adds, almost absently. "Barbara would like that, I imagine." He has no idea, in fact.

"In the spring," Bush echoes. The far-away look is in his eyes for only a moment, and if Hornblower had not been looking just then he would not have caught it: almost as soon as it is there it passes, and Bush picks up the _Gazette_ and is absorbed again.

Hornblower takes his meaning well enough. Bush may be growing old — he himself may be growing old — but still their lives seem to stretch before them to eternity, and Hornblower finds he must remind himself, not for the first time, of what great good fortune this is.

*

Hornblower marries Barbara quietly on a Sunday in November. She wears blue.

They honeymoon on the Continent for three weeks, and the Monday after they get back, he kisses Barbara and Richard Arthur goodbye and drives up to Smallbridge. The great hall has been under renovation in preparation for their arrival; he has been taking trips up for months, overseeing the work. There is nothing extraordinary about this. Barbara will hardly miss him, at any rate; the embellishment of the house in Curzon Street consumes much of her daily devotion now.

He lasts three days. On Thursday, he drives to Chichester. He pretends confusion, a mistake in the date, a pre-arrangement; and if Bush's sisters note his surprise when he arrives the next afternoon to find Hornblower ensconced in the gable bedroom, they hide it as well as he does.

The days are short now, but sunny. Crisp and clear, and in two weeks it will be Christmas. The thought of Christmas in the little cottage — Bush in that great blue armchair, lighting his pipe and throwing the matches onto the fire — the smell of roasting fat, of mulled wine, the forest-smoke whiff of the garlands —

But then, Hornblower has never set much store by such things.

"Come, Captain Hornblower, won't you take another turn?"

This from the youngest. Sophie. Green-eyed and red-cheeked in the cold, with honey-coloured hair all tucked up in a woolen cap. She looks younger still on the ice. Her face is a little too long and her nose a little too snub for beauty, and she is well past twenty; yet still she manages to harbour some trace of the hope which her sisters have long since put away — and this, perhaps, imparts some sparkle to her countenance, and causes her, on occasion, to ask silly and provocative questions of strange visitors, and to earn the rebuke of her sisters.

It was not until his third or fourth visit that Hornblower had noticed the crookedness of her bottom teeth — not horrible, but enough so that she is in the habit of smiling close-lipped, coy and shy. It is with this smile, and a small red-mittened hand, that she appeals now. Hornblower casts around briefly, but no harbour presents — Emily and Eliza are off on the far side of the pond, lapping in smooth, slow strokes, cloaks a robin's-egg wake behind them. Bush is planted firm nearer the middle, spinning Charlotte in wild circles; Hornblower can hear the shrieks, the laughter — hers half-terrified, his merry — from here. He has some brief, wordless thought — of how much there is which makes a man, and how curious, and how sad, that one could spend half one's life with another and still come to know him hardly at all.

Then he takes Sophie's hand, and they set off across the frozen world, course uncharted.

*

Charlotte is the second sister, the nearest to Bush in age. Slight and small, with ash-brown hair always pulled back into the same modest knot, her skin has a sort of tissue-paper fineness to it, and is beginning to show its age: faintly, in delicate lines of worry on her forehead, at the corners of her eyes. Her hand on Hornblower's arm perches like a bird.

"I think my sister Sophie is a little in love with you, Captain Hornblower," she says, low and conspiratorial. The lady in question is walking a safe distance before them, wool-capped head bent close to her brother's. "I suppose we all are, a little. Even William."

She laughs, as though this is a great joke. Her smile is unexpected, dazzling. Bush's. It transforms her plain pinched face, and he notices, for the first time, that her eyes are clear, clear blue.

They walk in silence for some time. Then, very softly—

"You were with him? When it happened," she explains, and what it is needs no saying, of course.

"I was."

She doesn't say anything more. It is past five, already twilight, and snow has begun to fall, great feathers of it. The ground crunches rhythmically beneath Hornblower's boots. They are falling farther behind, so that Bush and Sophie ahead are only faint outlines now. At last her hand presses his arm, just a little, and he stops, turns to her. Her hood is dark red — dusted white now — and her face unreadable in its shadow.

"I think we must be very grateful to you, Captain Hornblower." This murmured, almost inaudible, and with a look somewhere over his left shoulder. She reaches, suddenly, as though to brush a stray curl from his forehead, and Hornblower is almost — almost — leaning in to receive the touch when she recollects herself and pulls the hand back. Flutters, averts her eyes, laughs a little; the moment passes. They walk on down the lane.

*

In the morning the sisters dress in their finest, don shawls and bonnets, and leave for church. There is no discussion of Bush going with them. Hornblower has the sense of an old, old stalemate. He does not ask; and, he being Bush's guest, the sisters diplomatically neglect to extend the invitation to him.

Afterward there is a white lawn tablecloth spread with tea — though, to Hornblower's very great chagrin, no coffee — and sausages and eggs and toast, and fried tomatoes and black pudding. Hornblower is surprised to have beat Bush downstairs — he would have counted on the smell of a fry-up to rouse Bush from death's door — but he is surprised into wordlessness when Bush finally appears, tall and taut and dressed in blue, taking up the entire doorway. Hornblower blinks his astonishment, and finally Bush says—

"Today is Sunday, sir."

—and they laugh and laugh, and the feeling of grief is really only very slight.


End file.
